Australia’s Great National Misery

There was a time when Australians measured national success in simple terms: could you buy a home, raise a family, find work, feel safe, and believe your children would do better than you did? Now we measure success by whether the supermarket bill caused only minor cardiac distress.

The latest polling from Australian National University confirms what millions already know in their bones: Australia feels broken. Life satisfaction has fallen to the lowest level recorded in the ANUpoll series, lower even than during the COVID lockdown years. That should ring alarm bells in every parliament, ministerial office and taxpayer-funded think tank in the land. But do not expect urgency from the professional class. They are too busy workshopping diversity statements and announcing “strategic frameworks”.

Rather than a sudden collapse, the ANU data reveals a slow grind downward. Professor Nicholas Biddle noted life satisfaction was already depressed before the latest fall. In plain English, Australians were already struggling, and then things got worse. A temporary shock can be repaired. A sustained decline points to something deeper, policy failure, cultural drift, economic insecurity and leadership devoid of courage.

Nearly 35 per cent of Australians say they are finding life difficult or very difficult on their current income. That is a record high. Why would they not be?

Housing costs are obscene. Energy bills are punitive. Insurance is climbing. Food prices keep creeping upward. Fuel spikes from instability in the Middle East hit every supply chain and every household budget. Governments tell people inflation is easing. Families reply by checking their bank balance.

Technocrats love aggregates. Households live in particulars.

Official unemployment may sit around 4.3 per cent, but more than a quarter of employed Australians expect to lose their job in the next 12 months. Around 30 per cent fear machines or computer programs will replace them. That is a devastating statistic. A society cannot thrive when workers feel disposable.

And while the corporate world lectures everyone about innovation, firms like Atlassian have already cut jobs citing AI-driven workforce changes. Workers hear the message clearly: adapt, retrain, accept less, and do not complain.

Nearly three in five Australians think life was better 50 years ago. A similar number believe life will be worse in 50 years. The gap between those who think today’s children will have better lives and those who think they will have worse ones has blown out dramatically since 2008.

When ordinary people stop believing tomorrow will be better, the social contract starts to fray. Because many Australians sense that the rules changed. Work harder and you still cannot buy a home. Study more and you are still drowning in debt. Pay taxes and services decline. Follow the law and criminals seem indulged. Trust institutions and they lecture more than they listen.

People do not need a sociology degree to notice unfairness. They notice politicians insulated from consequences. They notice bureaucracies growing while productivity shrinks. They notice ideological obsessions taking precedence over practical competence. And they are tired of being told their frustration is misinformation.

Interestingly, satisfaction with democracy remains relatively steady, with around two-thirds still broadly satisfied. That is not an endorsement of the ruling class. It is a sign that Australians still believe the system could work, if serious people ran it. The public has not given up on democracy. They have given up on mediocrity.

Australia does not need more slogans, advisory panels or “national conversations”. It needs cheaper and reliable energy, housing supply that matches demand, lower tax and less waste, border integrity and public safety, education that teaches skills rather than activism, productivity reform that rewards work, and leaders who serve citizens rather than headlines.

None of this is mysterious. It is merely unfashionable among the Canberra class.

Australia is not broken beyond repair. But it is being worn down by drift, denial and incompetence. People can endure hardship when they see purpose and progress. What they cannot endure forever is decline wrapped in spin.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” — Dr Seuss